How is recruitment different around the world?
Continuous globalization makes a huge impact on all business organizations. With transnational expansion being not only desired but often necessary, companies are required to make bold choices and constantly evolve in order to thrive in today’s economy.
As a result, enterprises often revise their approaches to recruitment and hiring. The shortage of talent, on the one hand, and the rise of outsourcing solutions, on the other, are imperative to consider and address when implementing strategies for effective recruitment. To remain competitive, international organizations strive to optimize the time-consuming process of IT recruitment, in the meanwhile transforming the role of hiring managers.
With Maxima Consulting’s recruitment team working with IT experts across America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, we can confidently say that adjusting the organization’s recruiting practices to the expectations candidates have in a given location is key to attracting the best talent.
Read this article to discover unusual hiring practices around the world and learn why your organization should embrace global recruitment.
The benefits of global teams
Some workforce solutions are based on recruiting for skills your team needs regardless of a candidate’s location. Other recruitment services focus on recruiting and onboarding candidates from a specific, preselected location to perform tasks at a specific time and/or at an optimized rate.
Regardless of exact hiring needs, global workforces bring many benefits to organizations.
- In the face of a talent shortage in the IT industry, achieving your company’s digital needs is more manageable with access to a global talent pool.
- While the skills of tech workers around the world are comparable, recruiting IT experts from a country that is cheaper to live in often helps businesses to achieve significant cost optimization.
- Talent located around the globe can efficiently assist and support your local employees in their IT needs around the clock, with different shifts being handled by teams in different time zones.
- Global hiring enables companies to reach their diversity goals easier and consequently improve the organization’s collective knowledge and ingenuity, making it easier to adapt to changing markets and drive future success.
Differences in hiring IT experts in various countries
Just as every country has its unique history, culture, values, and labor regulations, job candidates behave differently depending on their locations. They also hold various expectations regarding recruiters and the HR team.
While the basics of talent acquisition are pretty similar everywhere (the recruitment process usually consists of applying with a resume and holding interviews), the specifics often differ.
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Recruitment in the USA
When Maxima Consulting was founded in Boston in 1993, it was focused on supporting local IT needs, mainly in the financial industry. When the high demand for IT skills in the US made it hard to recruit experts locally, we decided to start searching for qualified candidates elsewhere - first in India, then in Europe, and now globally. However, up to this day, we regularly fill roles in the US and Canada, as many of our clients and employees live and work in America.
The USA is rightfully known for being employer-friendly, but foreign entrepreneurs willing to hire in America must remember that it is a federal country comprised of many states. Apart from federal laws that apply to all American territories, different states have slightly different legal rules regarding creating new jobs.
What to expect when recruiting in America?
The recruitment process in the US is pretty straightforward, but some practices can be a surprise for employers and candidates from abroad.
Resumes and cover letters
In the US, resumes are usually one page, only highlight the most important information about previous jobs and education, and virtually never contain a candidate photo.
Cover letters are typically needed, and candidates utilize them as a platform to show off their personality and tell a compelling story that explains their interest in the position.
Job interviews and testing
Most recruitment processes employ two rounds of job interviews. As everywhere in the world, making a great first impression is very important. In the US, that means candidates should "dress for success" and always arrive on time.
Candidates are expected to be confident in their skills and openly talk about their successes and strengths, which can be counter-intuitive for job seekers coming from many Asian and European countries where the local culture values modesty in self-presentation.
Many organizations utilize testing to assess candidates’ skills and cultural fit. However, the scale of such testing varies heavily between industries.
Some companies also conduct background checks when recruiting to verify applicants’ education levels and their references.
Candidates often send follow-up emails after the job interview to thank the recruiting manager for their time and confirm their continued interest in the position.
The success and joining a team
A successful candidate typically receives a job offer, including proposed salary, benefits information, and a starting date, by email or a phone call followed by an email summary.
Benefits packages in the USA usually include a healthcare plan and some paid vacation time. Still, IT candidates can also reasonably expect dental and vision insurance, retirement and/or pension plans, life insurance, as well as some other optional benefits.
Hiring a perfect candidate from Europe
Compared to the USA, the European job market is very diverse, as the continent consists of many independent countries, each with its own culture, regulations, and language. A company willing to hire a team of European developers and engineers should always perform thorough market research and build a location strategy with a focus on the organization’s unique business goals.
While IT experts from all European countries will be able to adjust to your company’s business process, your strategy should be different if you’re going for legacy programming language expertise than if your top priority is cost optimization.
An experienced third-party IT consulting partner will help you assess your existing resources and adjust the recruitment solutions to the individual requirements of your enterprise.
What should you know when recruiting in Europe?
It’s nearly impossible to generalize how a recruitment process looks like "in Europe," as it’s completely different in the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, and Portugal. Still, there are some similarities that potential employers should know about.
Resumes vs. CVs
Resumes in Europe are sometimes called "CVs" (short for "curriculum vitae"), which is supposed to derive from academia, but in the IT industry context, the name is interchangeable. European CVs usually contain candidates’ photos.
Recruiters prefer longer CVs that contain all information than resumes squeezed into one page that leave essential information out.
A European candidate will typically include a photo and personal information on top of the resume, then list their work history (from the most recent company to the least recent one), technical and soft skills, tools they’re familiar with, and the last stage of completed education.
Job interviews and a typical recruitment process
LinkedIn is not as huge in Europe as in the US, but in IT recruitment, it is the social network of choice for talent acquisition teams. However, having a job post on the company page and utilizing local recruitment portals are of benefit.
Two rounds of job interviews are increasingly common, especially in IT. These interviews - typically an introductory call and a technical call - are often conducted online.
European IT recruiters, especially those involved with global recruitment vendors, are proactive and dedicated to keeping job applicants informed throughout the process.
Remote-first approach
Since the coronavirus pandemic, remote work has been popularized across Europe, and many positions that previously mandated office attendance are now 100% remote. Many tech employees prefer working from their homes and will prioritize a company offering a remote job above office-only businesses.
Consequentially, candidate-focused companies offer additional budgets for setting up a proper home office area. The recruitment and onboarding processes are often performed using online tools.
It is important to note that remote work may require compliance with country-specific laws.
Common benefit schemes in Europe
In most European countries, employers are legally required to pay for employees’ healthcare and retirement fees, and paid vacation days are regulated.
However, private healthcare and insurance are common benefits for IT candidates. Some companies try to attract workers with additional days off and flexible working hours.
Other popular perks a tech candidate can count on in Europe are subsidized entrance cards for sports & fitness facilities and training budgets.
Successful IT recruiting in European countries
Navigating the fragmentized European job market is complex. It demands subject matter expertise, but excellent education, broad access to niche expertise, and cost optimization possibilities are excellent reasons for a company to create a European branch.
To ensure effective talent acquisition in Europe, global organizations often ally with international recruitment agencies. Choosing the right company to be your recruitment partner becomes crucial to a future-proof global talent acquisition strategy.
Remember that your vendor should hold similar values, have the proven ability to fill positions quickly, guarantee compliance with local labor codes, and offer support in onboarding and managing your new nearshore or offshore teams.
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How to reach qualified candidates in Asia?
Asia is the biggest continent in the world and home to 48 different countries, each of them with a distinct culture and history. The two most populated are India and China, both inhabited by more than 1,4 billion people whose cultures and languages vary from region to region.
The list below is only an attempt to showcase the diversity of Asia and the importance of having regional expertise when recruiting in the East.
- In China, education is often put on the top of a resume, as it’s considered very significant for employers and employees alike.
- Candidates from East Asian countries (e.g., China, Japan, and South Korea) are typically modest when it comes to self-rating their performance and talking about their work successes.
- When asked about their background, East Asian candidates are more likely to talk about their education, while Middle Eastern candidates would rather talk about their families.
- Japanese employees value loyalty and often aim to work at one company for the whole length of their careers, making recruitment in Japan challenging.
How to find and hire a perfect IT candidate in India?
What is global talent acquisition, and why is it important?
Global talent acquisition means a company’s recruitment efforts are reaching locations around the globe to find the best talent, bridge the skill gaps, and develop its operations.
Global recruitment can be the answer to a talent shortage in IT, but only if companies attempting to hire abroad are sensitive to the local workforce’s unique needs from the start. Attracting perfect candidates requires researching a typical recruitment process in the country in which you want to conduct business and being flexible enough to ensure compliance with regional recruitment requirements.
How do you create a global talent acquisition strategy?
A modern hiring strategy should highlight the importance of acquiring the right talent abroad and provide the means to do so. A popular choice among top global companies is to work with an experienced recruitment firm that understands the needs of both corporate clients and global talent.
How do you attract top global talent?
Maxima Consulting has supported companies in meeting their IT needs since 1993. Seeing global expansion as a necessity and an opportunity, we provide our clients with the best candidates from various locations.
Our Global Delivery Model enables companies from multiple industries, including banking, logistics, and utilities, to find niche technology experts in reasonable timeframes, access 24/7/365 maintenance and support services with a strategically located global workforce, and optimize their employment costs simultaneously.
The role of international recruitment agencies
The globalized market demands global solutions, but what if your organization lacks the necessary strategy or in-house skills to fill vacancies with international candidates? Finding the right recruitment partner will boost your global talent acquisition efforts and ensure the desired candidates want to join your company. This is where recruitment firms like Maxima Consulting can help.
At Maxima Consulting, we prioritize relationships and personal development to attract candidates with ideal skills. Our experienced recruiters provide the right talent globally, whether your project is building custom software or migrating a niche legacy system to a modern cloud environment.
Start leveraging global hiring resources in an optimal way. Contact us today for a free consultation.
